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Old Thu Dec 15, 2005, 04:42pm
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I think i remember this being discussed previously on a thread, but I ain't gonna hunt for it.

Anyhow, an assistant coach in the Los Angeles area has been banned for life for moving a down marker that kept a drive alive and allowed his team to win a game. I think the ban only applies to the district in which he was working at the time.
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Old Thu Dec 15, 2005, 10:42pm
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here's the Link

http://www.latimes.com/sports/highsc...anpedro15dec15,0,1396157.story?coll=la-headlines-sports-highschool

And the story:

Coach Gets Lifetime Ban for Moving First-Down Marker
By Martin Henderson, Times Staff Writer


The Los Angeles City Section gave a lifetime coaching ban to the San Pedro High assistant football coach who was caught on videotape cheating to give his team an advantage during a game in late October.

Paul Bryan, a coach for 23 years with San Pedro, will not be allowed to coach at any school within the L.A. Unified School District.

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Bryan was caught moving a yard marker that helped keep alive a fourth-quarter drive in which San Pedro scored on Oct. 28. San Pedro eventually defeated Gardena, 13-12.



Bryan's action was called "the most egregious thing I've ever seen a coach do on the sideline" by Chatsworth Principal Jeff Davis, a member of the section's rules committee that imposed the ban.

Gardena Coach Marshall Jones said, "Coaches are under a great burden to not only teach kids how to play the game and try to win, but also to help mold them into young adults and good people. It's a tough job, but it's one a lot of us love and put our hearts and souls into, and we don't like it when people do things that taint the profession.

"Ultimately, it's a game, and the best team should win, and there shouldn't be any question as to how that happens."

The nine-member rules committee convened Tuesday and met with San Pedro Principal Diana Gelb and Athletic Director Bob Schatz. Neither Bryan nor Mike Walsh, the head football coach, was present. The school was told of the decision Wednesday.

"The rules committee felt the act was serious enough to warrant a lifetime ban," said Barbara Fiege, director of the City Section, which is one of three California Interscholastic Federation sections statewide that is also its own school district and has hiring and firing power.

"They felt that it was a premeditated decision, at that time, to move the chains. And that act, in and of itself, was serious enough to warrant that penalty.

"We continue to talk about the importance of using athletic competition as part of the educational process of the students that we work with, and this was a good expose of how important those lessons are."

Tonya Cameron, District 8 director of the LAUSD, which includes San Pedro, said, "It's unfortunate that one person's actions put a blot on the school's reputation. It's very unprofessional, uncalled for, not supported by anyone. You try to teach the kids to have dignity and honor and ethics in every avenue of their school career."

Gelb had initially suspended Bryan from coaching for a year, but on Tuesday she said she would not rehire him in the future. A teacher's aide in special education at San Pedro, Bryan was transferred to Wilmington Middle School on Nov. 8, based on what Gelb called the "health, safety and welfare of the students and district."

Gelb, Schatz and Walsh did not return phone calls. Bryan declined to comment but said he has retained an attorney.

Bryan, a volunteer coach, moved the yard marker closer to the line of scrimmage, and officials signaled for a first down without taking an actual measurement. The misdeed was noticed by Harbor City Narbonne coaches a week later while studying their videotape of the game, and they couldn't understand why referees didn't measure on such a close play.

Manuel Douglas, Narbonne's head coach, felt Bryan's punishment was too severe. "I'm not making excuses, but a year's suspension should have been it," he said. "This is what the guy lives for. There's been 20 years of coaching where he's done an admirable job. I don't see how you can take it away from him the rest of his life…. He did something wrong, no doubt, but that seems a little excessive … a lot excessive."

At a McDonald's near San Pedro High, community member Andy Waters said Bryan got what he deserved. "There is no place for cheating in sports, especially at the high school level," Waters said. "What kind of message are we sending to kids, that it's OK to cheat? What kind of kids are they going to grow up to be? Probably the head of Enron or WorldCom."

Other sanctions could be forthcoming. The rules committee requested to meet with Walsh, Schatz and the assistant principal in charge of athletics, Aadil Naazir, on Jan. 17, and tabled further action until that time.

The committee took a dim view of Bryan's making a student an accessory to his act, since the chain crew was made up of students, not adults.

At the hearing, Schatz said he had been told by Bryan when they first discussed the incident, "I was putting it back where I originally saw it."

On Tuesday, Gelb and Schatz mostly answered questions about when the school had learned of the tape and why Gelb had waited until after the season ended, 11 days, to view a copy. She said she didn't realize the severity of the incident but relieved Bryan of his duties immediately, on Nov. 29, six days after San Pedro was beaten by Sylmar, 33-30, in the City quarterfinals.

The tape attracted national headlines.

"It took on a life of its own," said Douglas, whose coaching staff watched the tape 15 to 20 times before noticing Bryan's act. "People who don't know Bryan, San Pedro, Narbonne and Gardena, who don't know football in the South Bay, picked it up and ran with it."

The City has worked with the Michael Josephson Institute of Ethics in its "Pursuing Victory with Honor" initiative, and Josephson said he agreed with the ban.

"It became a symbol of the worst in sports," Josephson said. "We cannot permit cheating. We have to make a statement, 'This is absolutely unacceptable.' You have to send a message to coaches, 'You are the teachers of our children, and if you want the right to teach about sports, you need to be a good example.' "

Marie M. Ishida, executive director of the CIF, agreed with the decision. "While at first glance the punishment of a lifetime ban may seem harsh, I am not surprised by the decision from the Los Angeles City Section," she said.
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Old Fri Dec 16, 2005, 11:10am
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Quote:
Originally posted by Whistles & Stripes
Bryan, a volunteer coach, moved the yard marker closer to the line of scrimmage, and officials signaled for a first down without taking an actual measurement. The misdeed was noticed by Harbor City Narbonne coaches a week later while studying their videotape of the game, and they couldn't understand why referees didn't measure on such a close play.
How does a coach do this? I don't mean in the moral sense, but in the actual sense. I don't know about you guys, but we usually have 4 people (but sometimes 3) on the chains. But there is always somebody at either end of the chains, and one for the box.

So given that there is someone there, how does a coach move the yard marker, without support from the guy on the end of it? And if he moved a yard marker in the sense of a number on the side of the field, what were the officials using? Why were they looking at the numbers instead of the chains?
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Old Fri Dec 16, 2005, 02:57pm
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Though I'm not 100% sure, as I've only seen the tape once, but I believe there were students running the chains. Obviously, if it were a crew of officials, it wouldn't have happened.
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Old Sun Dec 18, 2005, 09:13am
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Quote:
Originally posted by Suudy
Quote:
Originally posted by Whistles & Stripes
Bryan, a volunteer coach, moved the yard marker closer to the line of scrimmage, and officials signaled for a first down without taking an actual measurement. The misdeed was noticed by Harbor City Narbonne coaches a week later while studying their videotape of the game, and they couldn't understand why referees didn't measure on such a close play.
How does a coach do this? I don't mean in the moral sense, but in the actual sense. I don't know about you guys, but we usually have 4 people (but sometimes 3) on the chains. But there is always somebody at either end of the chains, and one for the box.

So given that there is someone there, how does a coach move the yard marker, without support from the guy on the end of it? And if he moved a yard marker in the sense of a number on the side of the field, what were the officials using? Why were they looking at the numbers instead of the chains?
There were kids running the chains, so I guess he took over.
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Old Sun Dec 18, 2005, 09:35am
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Originally posted by Forksref
There were kids running the chains, so I guess he took over.
Let this be a lesson for those kids as well. Hopefully they realize there is a leadership lesson in this unfortunate event.
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Old Sun Dec 18, 2005, 11:51am
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Suudy
Quote:
[i]How does a coach do this? I don't mean in the moral sense, but in the actual sense. I don't know about you guys, but we usually have 4 people (but sometimes 3) on the chains. But there is always somebody at either end of the chains, and one for the box.

So given that there is someone there, how does a coach move the yard marker, without support from the guy on the end of it? And if he moved a yard marker in the sense of a number on the side of the field, what were the officials using? Why were they looking at the numbers instead of the chains?
Yes, there were stundents on the chains and he made the one student on the one end of the chains move. If the officials would have measured they would have figured it out because only one end moved.
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Old Sun Dec 18, 2005, 07:24pm
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Where was the HL through all of this?

He should know that the ball hasn't travelled 10 yards.
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Old Wed Dec 21, 2005, 11:03pm
tpaul
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Originally posted by ref18
Where was the HL through all of this?

He should know that the ball hasn't travelled 10 yards.
oh, he was sleeping...LOL
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Old Thu Dec 22, 2005, 09:14am
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REPLY: I wouldn't single out the HL. When you watch the beginning of the film clip, you can see very clearly that the line-to-gain is just beyond A's 45, meaning you need to reach the stripe for a new series. All of the officials should know that. The coach moved the front stake back to about A's 44. When the R looked to the sideline after the play (not shown) they should have immediately realized something was amiss since the LTG was now on the near side of the stripe. Since the equipment is to the HL's back and since he was coming in hard to get the dead ball spot, he couldn't have seen the stake move. Better question would be what about the LJ? He should immediately be looking at the foremost stake to determine whether the clock needs to stop. If anyone should have actually seen the coach move the stake, it should have been him.

But none of this is the fault of the officials. It is solely the fault of a coach who favored the expedience of cheating to the ethics of fair play. In doing so, he sold out his players, his school, his administrators, and himself.
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Old Fri Dec 23, 2005, 11:24am
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Vince Lombardi said "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing."

The coach's team won the game. Without this cheating, which was not caught until after the game, his team would have lost.

The kids learned a valuable lesson consistent with American values. "It's not how you play the game, it's whether you win or lose that's important."

So rather than give the coach the heave-ho, he should be awarded the Vince Lombardi American Values Award.
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Old Tue Jan 03, 2006, 09:19am
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A local radio station here in Baltimore somehow got this guys number and called him. He vehemently denied doing it and when told that it was obvious from the video that he did, he said it was the right thing to do. The guy was completely crazy. He used sentences like...

Coach - "What's your favorite breakfast?"
DJ - "I don't eat breakfast, I drink coffee"
Coach - "Well, you know what mine is? A big steaming cup of Victory. And I let all the kids put their straws in it and take a sip."

AND

DJ - "Do you know _____ ______ ?"
Coach - "Yea...great kid. Excellent kid"
DJ - "Yea, well, he said you were wrong and really hurt them by doing this"
Coach - "His parents are brother and sister!"

Complete nut job!!


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